Visual is the predominant system used by males and people with technical jobs, and the primary demographic of tapping musicians is technical-job males over 35 years of age. (As best I can tell from speaking with thousands of them over the last 15 years or so.)

So the majority of people who come to our world of touchstyle play will tend to be visually oriented. And therefore, the parallel fourths tuning is the easiest one for them to “see”. (Because both sides “look” the same to the eye.)

But that’s not all …

For there are also auditory people, who mainly have word and sound models in their heads. (On the way to Grandma’s house, in their mind they hear “drive for three miles then turn left at snakebite road”.)

And there are tactile or kinesthetic people, who mainly react to feelings, emotions, and sensations. I really do not know how these people get to Grandma’s house. But I feel that they will be there, can you dig it?

You’d think that all us musicians would be auditory, but apparently it’s just not true.

There do seem to be quite a few people who are largely kinesthetic, when it comes to playing these instruments. Whenever you notice somebody saying that the two hands just ‘feel’ right with the mirrored tuning, you’re probably communicating with a kinesthetic-models person.

And in a case like that, a mirrored tuning, where the hand sensations would be identical as they played both hands up a scale … to that person they’d be doing the ‘same’ thing in both stringsets.

So to the visual-model person, because parallel tunings ‘look’ the same, for him to play up a scale with both hands is doing the ‘same’ thing in bass and melody.

But for a kinesthetic-model person, because mirror tunings ‘feel’ the same, for him to play up a scale with both hands is doing the ‘same’ thing in bass and melody.

Now none of this is completely locked in stone. I’m a visual guy, but sometimes I remember instructions by repeating the words. And voila! I was always able to get to Grandma’s house. But in holding a phone number in my head, I notice that I can repeat it over and over, but I get better results if I picture my fingers on the touch-tones. I do this once and I’ll remember the pattern visually for longer than I will remember the sound of the number sequence. Mainly a visual dude.

I’m pretty sure that most of our arguments about the best tuning, relative to mirror versus parallel, are nothing but two people who use different internal modeling trying to ‘spress themsefs.’

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– by Traktor Topaz

Something most of us musicians don’t often think about is … wood and moisture content.

However, the stability of your instrument can be adversely affected if the instrument is made without proper (and sometimes prolonged) drying of the wood. That is, if the natural moisture content of the live wood has not evaporated out of the cut wood, and come to equilibrium with the surrounding air, then there will be further movement — inside the wood of the instrument — even as you’re trying to play it.

• In some cases, the neck can change shape a little. Usually this is correctable using only the truss rod, assuming that the neck has been made of multiple strips of wood (which if done properly will eliminate side to side warping).
• In other cases, the ends of the frets may protrude. The metal frets haven’t become longer; the wood has become less wide, as it gave up some mass from water vapor.
• Of course, the *primary* job of an instrument finish is to slow down the movement of water vapor into and out of the wood. Even properly-prepared wood may have some changes later, if you play one night in the Phoenix desert and the next day in the coast city of Seattle. Beauty is nice, but the primary function of instrument finish is to slow down any later loss or gain of water vapor.

TALKING ON TAPPISTRY FORUM

On the Tappistry Forum (http://tappistry.org/forum), a member named Julian recently reported on a home-building project because he is building his own tapping instrument.

He commented that other tasks had taken him away from his building project, and when he returned two months later, the (unfinished) instrument had frets protruding from either side of the fretboard.

He commented that he should have got finish applied to the instrument earlier.

However, if the wood shrank away from the fretends, then although that shrinkage would be accelerated by having no finish on it — he ran the much more serious risk of “checking” meaning the wood cracks open from the end grain end — and if the wood shrank, it quite possibly means that he may have been working with wood that was not fully dried.

There are premium woods that have been ‘air dried’, sometimes for year. In a violin bow factory that I visited in China, they had an entire building about the size of a two car garage, filled with thin strips of wood stacked in opposite directions, with airspace around all of them.

They built bows from the wood on the south end, and the new wood they bought was stacked the same way on the north end, and they had more than a years worth of wood stacked like that, so by the time they got to a new batch of wood, it had been air drying for over a year.

Most wood you get nowadays is kiln-dried. Now for many purposes, that may be fine, but it does mean that the wood has been dried using heat, and this is a “quick” process. As you can imagine, it actually produces wood dry on the outside, but not so dry on the inside. And therefore it continues to dry for quite some time.

And that means it continues to shrink, for all wood shrinks as it gives up the mass of the water content.

KILN-DRIED VERSUS AIR-DRIED

So if homebuilding a musical instrument, always be sure you’re getting at *least* kiln dried wood (not green wood), and then paint the end grain with paint, or latex, or parafin or something that seals the end grain to prevent “checking” (cracks), and then stack it properly (“stickering”) so that it’s not bending under gravity, but has air space around it, and then let it dry for a time.

You can of course buy green wood, from a mill, and you can get good quality and pricing; however, be prepared to buy a lot, and have a lot of storage space and lots and lots of time for the drying process.

Here at Mobius Megatar, we have most of this outsourced, so I don’t have to work with it any more, and there are many guitar builders who can give the formulas better than I, but the general rule of thumb is that the common formula (for green wood) is a year per inch of thickness, plus a year.

I suspect that’s excessive.

For kiln-dried, it will be far less, but I’ve never heard an exact formula. Of course if you have large pieces that will be made smaller, best to make them smaller first, then paint the ends, and then let them dry. Because smaller pieces can more easily give up their water vapor, and therefore come to stability (being dried out) faster.

OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER

Naturally, all this process is an interplay that also involves the humidity in your location, your shop, and the wood-storage area. In a perfect world these three would all have the same (fairly low) humidity.

You can get a tool that shows both temperature and humidity called a Thermo Hygrometer. This is handy for any spraybooth, but it’s also good to get an idea of your shop and storage humidity through the year.

You can also get a tool to measure the ‘wetness’ of wood. A cheap one has two prongs, and a more expensive one (about $300, if I recall) uses induction. Each has to be calibrated to the type of wood, as they’re correlating resistance or inductance that can be measured easily with the water content, which varies by species and which I think can only be measured precisely by burning up the wood. (Really not recommended for your guitar building!)

But I think our Julian may have lucked out. His wood became air dried, and it didn’t crack.

That’s lucky.

GUIDELINES FOR TAKING CARE OF YOUR INSTRUMENT

Here we’ll take our cues from acoustic-guitar builders, and they seem to agree that a relative humidity of 45%-55% is best, and that 40%-70% is generally safe.

Now if you grew up in a cold climate, you may just naturally think that dry and cracked lips are just a normal part of wintertime. But actually, that’s a symptom that the humidity is too low for your skin.

And … that’s too low for your guitar as well. Are solid-body guitars as sensitive as acoustic guitars? I’m speculating that it may not be as critical, however a good acoustic guitar can be a *lifetime* investment if cared for, and I see no reason that a good electric solid body shouldn’t outlast an acoustic, if you care for it.

So how do you care for it? Of course you could buy a Radio Shack hygrometer. (Not as fancy as the professional one in our spraybooth, but should be more than adequate for the purpose.) You could also invest in humidity-indicator strips. This would be a cheap alternative to getting a hygrometer, and would still be a scientific way to protect your guitars.

If your room(s) are too dry, then you’d be wise to cease storing your guitar on a stand or out in the open. Instead, put it inside a case. You can *easily* control humidity inside the small area of a case.

Then give your guitar some moisture in the air.

For example, dampen a cloth, place it in a baggie, then punch a couple of teeny-tiny holes, and store it in the case with your guitar.

Symptoms of too-dry wood may include: some neck shrinkage and fret ends feel sharp, intonation can go off, action can rise, and fret buzz can increase.

Patrick, our Shop Foreman, once had an acoustic guitar stored too long in too-low humidity, and it became too dry, and developed a kind of hump where neck meets body. A bit of water vapor from the baggie trick fixed it easily.

But you don’t have to wait for trouble to show up. A rough rule of thumb is that, if the human is comfortable, then the guitar is comfortable. (Just don’t think that dry, chapped lips are comfortable, tough guy!)

BUYING AN INSTRUMENT?

Buying an instrument, or having one made?

Want to make sure you’re getting properly cured wood?

Then … know your wood … or know your builder!

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HOW DO YOU COUNT FRETS?

It’s not a silly question. I have been surprised by how many times this question comes up.

Since this little question baffles so many people, I did a search on our favoriite search engine, and didn’t find the answer there. So … the answer is here.

I am greatly aided by Mr. Lon Withrow, who very kindly sent me the following two photographs.

PICTURE A: POINTING AT THE FRETDOTS

As shown here, on Chapman Stick and on Mobius Megatar instruments, you will find Fret Markers at 'Fret Two Position '

Near the top of the photograph, you can see the ivory-colored ‘nut’. Now on Mobius Megatar instruments, although we refer to the nut (because that’s what everyone calls it), in actual fact the ‘nut’ is mainly functioning as a string guide, to keep the strings all lined up where you want them.

Unlike normal guitar nuts, which have grooves filed to match each string size, our unique ‘nut’ has triangular notches, which causes the different-sized strings to self-adjust their position. This feature enables you to arrange strings in any configuration, with large strings going to small strings from left to right, or from right to left, or big strings in the middle, or big strings on the edge. It doesn’t matter. The strings will all correctly self-adjust their positions due to the triangular notches in the ‘nut.’

Now we must also consider the *height* of the strings. In a normal nut, the slots are different depths, according to the string gauges. But here we take a lesson from the past and use a ‘Zero Fret.’

USING A ZERO FRET

Look just below the ivory colored ‘nut,’ and you’ll see a fret. This is fret number zero. On many guitars, using a conventional nut, there is no zero fret, because the nut is the ‘zero fret.’ But here on the Megatar you see an actual metal fret, and it’s number is zero.

Now because all the strings are resting upon the zero fret, this means that their lower surfaces are all in a row, and all the lower surfaces are therefore at the same height. So the use of an actual zero fret means that you can arrange the strings in any order, ascending in any direction, and still all of the strings will be correctly placed just high enough, regardless of their various gauges.

MEGATAR UNIQUE DESIGN

The use of the Megatar custom nut triangluar-slot design, coupled with the use of a true zero fret is unique in guitar design, to the best of my knowledge. And what it gives us is perfect string positioning, regardless of the tuning arrangement of the strings that you mount on the instrument.

THE SOUND-DEADENER

Immediately below, and just touching the zero fret, you can see the black ‘sound deadener’ of a rubbery material that makes the string go mute very quickly.

Some people would call it a ‘string mute.’ Apparently the first string mute was used by Dave Bunker on one of his patented instruments a number of years before the Chapman Stick, or Warr Guitars, or Mobius Megatar. In theory, nobody should have been allowed to use a string mute, because it was patented! But Dave didn’t care, and string mutes have been used on the Stick, Warr, and other touch-style instruments since forever.

We cannot take credit for this wonderful stuff. Mark Warr of Warr Guitars showed it to us. It is used in the foundations of houses in the Los Angeles area, to reduce vibration coming from earthquakes. And you will find it sold in the kitchenware department of your local hardware store, as ‘shelf liner’. (When you place plates on it, they don’t move around!)

FRET NUMBER ONE

Slightly below the sound-deadener (or string-mute) is Fret Number One.

If this were a conventional guitar, where there was only a nut, then this would be the first metal fret you’d come to, and so the label 1st Fret would be more obvious. But on an instrument where there is a zero fret, then fret Number One is not so obvious!

FRET DOTS AT ‘FRET TWO POSITION’

In the photograph, Lon is pointing at the double-dots on the Megatar, and they’re located between the First and the Second Fret. The “First Fret” (meaning Fret #1) is above his finger. The “Second Fret” (meaning Fret #2) is below his finger.

Like on any guitar, the dots refer to the fret immediately below them. So the double-dots fretmarker is marking “Fret Two”.

CLEARING CONFUSION

In a zero-fret design, the first metal fret is Fret Zero.

The next metal fret is Fret One.

The next metal fret is Fret Two.

And so on.

It’s easy when you just count, starting at zero.

PLAYING A NOTE AT FRET ONE

Playing the note at Fret One - Playing Right On the Fret

Here the musician is playing the note at Fret One.

Because the sound-deadener is located between Fret Zero and Fret One, it takes slightly more tapping power to sound this note than sounding other notes on the fretboard. But the note at Fret One is playable and useful.

The next thing to notice is that the musician is playing almost directly ON the fret. (The finger illustrated could be even MORE on the fret.) You will get the best tone when you play ON the fret.

Again, clarifying the fret number is just a matter of counting.

Near the top of the photograph you can see the ivory-colored ‘nut’, and then directly below (about a quarter of an inch; about a centimeter) is a metal fret. It’s hard to see in this photograph, but it’s right at the top of the black string-deadener material. That initial fret is the zero-fret, right near the ‘nut position.’

So the next fret after fret zero is Fret One, and the photo shows the musician playing a note on Fret One.

I hope this long article on a short subject has been useful.

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The Mobius SustainoTapper builds into your choice of Mobius Megatar two-handed tapping instrument the fabulous Sustainiac infinite sustain system.

WHAT IS THE SUSTAINIAC INFINITE SUSTAIN SYSTEM?

Intense, predictable, infinite feedback sustain for guitars. You can morph sustained notes into cool-sounding harmonics during solos, and then back to fundamental vibration mode with the built in Harmonic Mode Control. Ooooh.

Indespensible for the recording studio, a sustainer is the only effect that operates directly on the strings of the instrument.

Maybe you’ve seen the little EBow sustainer gadget. The Sustainiac is kind of like an EBow on Steroids. The EBow is fun, except that it’s darned difficult to use an EBow on the strings while you’re making music with two-handed tapping. To do it, you’d have to have three hands. But with the Sustainiac infinite sustain system, the sustainer is built into the Megatar. Just flip the switch and melody notes sustain … forever.

That’s right. A Megatar that will sustain … forever.

TWO KINDS OF SUSTAIN …

The sustainer’s on/off switch is hidden inside the volume control. It’s a push-pull switch in the volume control, so you can just reach down, give it a tug, and you’re in mongo-sustain mode right now!

And in the tone control, there’s another push-pull switch that selects between normal (‘fundamental’) sustain, and a ‘harmonics’ sustain. I like the smooth sound of the fundamental sustain, but the shocking sound of the harmonics sustain may be just the ticket for some folks. As always, you can choose.

For a ton of technical information about the Sustainiac system, visit the Maniac Music website, here –

http://www.sustainiac.com/

Here’s a photograph of the SustainoTapper –

It will Sustain ... Forever ...

And here is a body close-up showing the Sustainer Driver Unit in greater detail ..

Sustainer Driver Unit (Near Fretboard)

HERE’S HOW IT WORKS …

The Sustainer Driver Unit — near the fretboard; it looks like a strat pickup — takes the signal from the melody-side Dragon pickup, and pulses a magnetic vibration at that exact same frequency into the melody string(s). This exact-frequency magnetic pulsation keeps the string vibrating, on that same note, for, well, … forever.

Imagine holding your melody notes for as long as you could ever want!

RESTRICTIONS AND METHOD

** Although we cannot presently install the Sustainiac Driver Unit on our Eclipse model — we don’t presently have templates for the installtion — we can make your SustainoTapper based upon a TrueTapper Dragon, a TrueTapper Storm, the MaxTapper, or the ToneWeaver.

** In each installation, we must mount the working pickups in the bridge position, because they must be as far from the Sustainiac Driver Unit as possible. To minimize crosstalk or bleed-through of the melody signal into the bass side, the bass pickup must be the furthest.

** Please remember that when your pickups are in the bridge position, they’ll have a sharper sound than when in the normal neck position. The bridge placement is a requirement of the driver installation.

** As best we can determine, it is not possible to install the Sustainiac driver on both the melody and the bass sides. Well, we could probably mount them on both sides, but God help you if you try to use them at the same time. The feedback and interference would be … oh, let’s don’t even think about it.

** The Sustainiac Driver Unit needs power, so we’ll install a flip-out battery box on the rear of your Megatar’s body. The flip-out battery box is a Quick-Change Artist –

1. Insert the Battery

2. Lock the Battery

3. Closing the Door

The Mobius SustainoTapper is available via Factory Order now, with fairly normal delivery times. (That is to say, we’ll build it to your spec and ship it out … fast!)

So, anytime you start thinking about the size of the Universe, and thinking about … Infinity … and what it would be like to go on forever … consider the Mobius SustainoTapper.

Sustain is your friend.

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There is no fee to sign up and you then receive discounts from $50 to $300 on tapping instruments manufactured by Mobius Megatar. They get end-of-year sales. Buyers get deep discounts during the Holiday Season. The offer is available from November 15, 2008 until Midnight on December 31, 2008.

An additional $90 bonus is provided for the first ten subscribers, and full details are available here –

Details on the Holiday Cheer Touchstyle Club promotion.

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QUESTION: Recently on the Tappistry.Org forum, Thom Ashworth from the United Kingdom asked other members about the Mobius Megatar ‘Eclipse’ model (our most-economical model).

Mr. Ashworth asked, “I’m just wondering if anyone here has played one of these instruments, because I’m wondering what it sounds like.”

ANSWER: Another member, R.J. Goos from Fargo, North Dakota, replied –

“I had possession of an Eclipse model for about a month, about six months ago, and I made recordings to compare it to the ‘Chapman Stick’ which I also had available. I played the same song on each instrument, using the same recording gear and settings. Although the song was played too fast, and I made some mistakes, I think you’ll get an idea of what the instrument sounds like.”

And so, thank you, Mr. Goos!

To hear the comparison recordings …

Comparing the Chapman Stick tone to Mobius Megatar tone

“About six months ago, I had access to Mobius Megatar Eclipse for a few weeks, so I made some recordings. The instruments were run into a small mixer, into a simple acoustic guitar effects pedal, and the output went directly into a computer for recording. The song is simple waltz.” — R.J. Goos

CHAPMAN STICK (MP3), mid-1990s model,
original pickup, rod frets,
original tuning, light gauge strings

MOBIUS MEGATAR ‘ECLIPSE’ (MP3),
tuned similar to Chapman Stick
(melody in 4ths, bass in inverted 5ths)

6-String Electric Guitar (MP3)
(inexpensive Korean Strat knock-off)

Commentary

As you can hear, the Stick instrument, which has a long and slim and somewhat flexible body, has a somewhat ‘chimey’ sound, whereas the Megatar instrument has a more guitar-and-bass kind of sound, with more substance and body on the lows, and a more rounded melody sound. This is what you would expect from the physical shape of the two instruments.

In addition, as Mr. Goos plays through the waltz, you can hear on the Megatar instrument how the notes sound subtly more ‘in tune’, because the Megatar instrument is built with the Buzz Feiten Intonation System. The tiny adjustments to bridge saddles and the ‘nut position’ cause corrections to the string length which make the scalar notes sound more ‘in tune’ to the human ear. (You can hear this especially clearly by comparing the ‘in tune’ sound of the high notes played in the ‘break’ section of each recording.) The better your ears, the more obvious this will be.

When comparing the Stick and Megatar instruments for value received, also bear in mind that current pricing (at the time of this writing) on the 10-string Stick instrument is about $2100, and the price for the 12-string Mobius Megatar Eclipse model is only $1190.

The Mobius instrument includes tone controls, the Buzz Feiten Intonation System, tilt-back head and through-body string anchoring for best sustain, two method books, and the stereo output cord. The Stick instrument does not include these things.

(Of course, Mobius Megatar offers several models with enhanced sound even better than our ‘Eclipse’ model, utilizing premium woods, Bartolini pickups, custom string saddles, and fanned frets, but these comparison recordings should make clear that our very simplest model compares extremely favorably against the Stick instrument!)

Finally, as a comparison, Mr. Goos also recorded the same waltz on a six-string stratocaster-type guitar. In order to do so, he had to position the notes somewhat higher-pitched, as you can hear, and perhaps it also sounds like it’s a bit more difficult to play in the restricted space of six strings, as compared to the touch-style instruments which have two separate sets of strings, one set for each hand.

[Note -- Mr. Goos was not compensated in any way for the production of these recordings, nor were they done at the request of Mobius Megatar. These recordings were undertaken for his own satisfaction, and he kindly gave us permission to present his recordings.]

Contact Information:

Mobius Megatar Touch-Style Instruments
Post Office Box 161
Weed, CA 96094 USA
(530) 938-1100 in USA (pacific time zone)
email: tappers /at\ megatar /dot\ com

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We’ve just opened it up, and in a short time you’ll find more and more articles here, about playing music with the two-handed touch-style method.

Please be patient while we build it up, and come back now and then.

We’ll be watching for you!

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